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Philosophy and Living

Philosophy can be very abstract and apparently remote from our everyday concerns. In this book the author brings out for the non-specialist the bearing that thinkers of the past have on the way we live now, on the attitude we have towards our lives, towards each other and our society, towards God and towards the ethical problems that confront us.

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Philosophy can be very abstract and apparently remote from our everyday concerns. In this book Ralph Blumenau brings out for the non-specialist the bearing that thinkers of the past have on the way we live now, on the attitude we have towards our lives, towards each other and our society, towards God and towards the ethical problems that confront us. The focus of the book is those aspects of the history of ideas which have something to say to our present preoccupations. After expounding the ideas of a particular thinker there follows a discussion of the material and how it relates to issues that are still alive today (indented from the margin and set in a different typeface), based on the author's classroom debates with his own students. Another feature of the book is the many footnotes which refer the reader back to earlier, and forward to later, pages of the book. They are intended to reinforce the idea that throughout the centuries philosophers have often grappled with the same problems, sometimes coming up with similar approaches and sometimes with radically different ones.

Source: Teaching Philosophy (APA)

"The author has given himself an immense task. He has carried it out admirably . . . he offers a book that is a pleasure to read: lucid, unpretentious, with a minimum of scholarly apparatus."

Source: Philosophy Now

"Blumenau is strong in the areas where Russell [History of Western Philosophy] is weak, and includes thinkers who have something of interest to say on theological or political or ethical matters, regardless of whether or not they have an established place in the philosophical canon."

Source: Metapsychology

"The book is written in a lively, casual, and engaging style with which a lay audience can easily connect."

Source: Wadham College Gazette

Credit: Michael Donkor

"Consistently Blumenau reminds us that philosophical texts shoould not serve as the be-all and end-all: they should be starting points, ideological springboards that begin something new, autonomous and unexpected . . .Structuring the work in such a manner gives it an unusual vivacity and energy."